“And Saul inquired of God, ‘Shall I go down after the Philistines? Will you give them into the hand of Israel?’ But he did not answer him that day. And Saul said, ‘Come here, all you leaders of the people, and know and see how this sin has arisen today. For as the Lord lives who saves Israel, though it be in Jonathan my son, he shall surely die.’ But there was not a man among all the people who answered him.”
– 1 Samuel 14:37–39
There’s a lot going on here in 1 Samuel 14:37–39, but what I want you to notice in these verses I just read is the impatience in Saul. Saul inquires of God, “Shall I go down after the Philistines? Will you give them into the hand of Israel?” But God didn’t answer him. And Saul started to move forward anyway. And he, in his haste, started making vows apart from the Lord. When I read this, I just think about the tendencies in me toward impatience. Like I don’t like waiting and I’m guessing you don’t like waiting either. It’s not natural for us to wait. It’s oftentimes natural for us to be impatient and to move ahead, and to move ahead, instead of waiting for God.
Oh God, please help us to wait patiently on you just like your Word says.
1 Samuel 14:37–39 Leads Us to Wait on God
I’ve been reading over the last year off and on an amazing devotional book by Andrew Murray called Waiting on God. And I have learned so much and I have so much more to learn about this, but I want to lead us to pray for patience in our lives as we wait on God in different ways.
Oh God, please help us to wait patiently on you just like your Word says. Please keep us from the sin of Saul here. Moving forward, apart from your direction, not trusting your timing. God help us to trust your timing. Even as I and my family wait for a child we’re adopting and long to go get him, God, I pray for faith in the waiting. God, I pray for that over all kinds of people who are waiting in this way or that way in their lives right now.
Help Us to Patiently Wait on God
God, help us to patiently wait on you, to patiently trust in you, to patiently obey you. God, help us to patiently trust your timing and to follow you, worship you in the middle of the waiting, knowing that as for waiting, you are working for our good, you are working in all kinds of ways that we cannot see. So God, help us, teach us to trust you, to be patient before you and not to get ahead of you. Not to take things into our own hands. God, teach us to wait patiently on you. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
